2017 in review: The 10 best international homes in 30+ pictures

Here's a round-up of the most beautiful homes from around the world that opened their doors to AD.

(Left) The attic apartment in Paris designed by Paris-based architect Sophie Dries; (right) Shamina Talyarkhan’s Upper East Side home in New York

An attic apartment in Paris with a curious package of all things contemporary. A stylish home in Stockholm with 19th century roots. These are the 10 best homes from around the world that opened their doors to AD in 2017.

Manhattan apartment in Central Park West, US

Photo courtesy: Michael Moran

US-based Shelton, Mindel built on the family’s roots with a Scandinavian interpretation of Modernism. The clean lines of the uncluttered apartment do not mean the occupants own nothing, just that the architects have expanded each of the walls with functions. For anyone who has wondered what ever happened to Scandinavian design, or what should have happened, Shelton, Mindel created an apartment that brings the high periods of the 20th century into the 21st. With a delicate balance of history and reinvention, the architects distilled an essence. Read the story.

Shamina Talyarkhan’s New York home

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Antonio Martinelli

Antonio Martinelli

Antonio Martinelli

The graciously appointed two-bedroom home on the Upper East Side in New York, designed by Talyarkhan and designer Russell Bush, bears testament to a life well dreamt, and well lived. Her home, in shades of well-mannered grey and an amalgam of diverse artefacts from Gandhara busts to Chinese pottery and Mughal miniatures, is carefully considered and chic. Read the story.

Rashid and Aroosa Rana’s Lahore house

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The staircase that leads to Rashid and Aroosa Rana’s Lahore home emerges into a monochrome world, greeted first of all by a classic black-and-white Mohammad Ali Talpur piece. With the Ranas, the boundaries between things are blurred. The walk-in closet is also a playroom; the study is also a dining room; the bedroom is also a nursery. Read the story.

The apartment in Moscow

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Russian interior designer Leyla Uluhanli took inspiration from neutral shades and a minimal elegant palette to do up her own apartment in Tverskoy Boulevard, the historic centre of Moscow. By using space judiciously, and deploying mirrors where needed, the rooms appear brighter and airier. The apartment takes on fresh, harmonious proportions. The apartment harmoniously combines three different stylistic periods—art deco, classical, and American 1960s retro-chic. Read the story.

New York loft by architect Shamir Shah

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There’s a continuity to this New York home that feels almost effortless and natural, belying all the thought that has gone into orchestrating this flow. A minimal modernism made humane with crafted details, it has the warmth and quietude that a home should ideally provide. In a city that often tends to be overwhelming, over-exposed and certainly isolating, it’s a luxury to be able to retreat to a home that has a quiet, warm rootedness. Read the story.

Attic apartment in Paris

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Historic oak beams were retained and multiple spaces were opened up in the renovation of this attic apartment perched atop Hotel Particulier d’Aligre on 15 Rue De L’Universite—a project ably handled by architect and itinerant art adviser Sophie Dries. The attic on this historical Paris 7 mansion was brightened to suit the purist style of its owner—Parisian filmmaker and artist Zoë Le Ber. The apartment makes way for an open kitchen with an urban wood birch matte finish; a large library with long, wooden seating spaces; and lightened, polished terracotta tiles for the flooring. You can draw parallels between filmmaker Zoë Le Ber’s temperament and the elements of the house at every turn. Read the story.

Another Moscow apartment

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Interior designer Nadya Zotova, of Enjoy Home architectural and interior design studio, leveraged prints, textures, and patterns in a duo-colour palette of blue and yellow throughout the house to achieve a cozy, summer-ready, stylish home for an art-inclined family. The colour palette of the apartment is built on deep blues and provocative shades of yellow that play with each other through the furnishing, decorative accents and cabinetry. Read the story.

The Stockholm home

Photo courtesy: Matthieu Salvaing

Street-style star Giovanna Battaglia and Swedish real-estate developer Oscar Engelbert moved into a renovated apartment in an 1800s building on Stockholm’s Djurgården island after getting married in 2016. In renovating the three-bedroom, four-bath flat, the couple was sensitive to the structure’s 19th-century roots. The duo did not use an architect or designer, instead relying on Oscar’s visual savvy. Much of the furniture had been collected by Oscar on his travels and locked away in storage for years. Read the story.

The treasure-filled Florida home, US

Photo courtesy: Kris Tamburello

Real estate magnate and Design Miami founder Craig Robins’s two-storey waterfront property is a treasure trove. He enlisted architect Walter Chatham and interior designer Julie Hillman to update the house and build an addition. Considered but not overly appointed, the inviting just-over-836-square-metre place is as much a functioning family home (the couple have six children) as it is an outlet for their boundless artistic passions. A tour of the home reveals an international who’s who of mid-century and contemporary design, including furniture and curios by Gio Ponti (lots and lots of Ponti!), Maria Pergay, Marc Newson, the Bouroullec brothers, the Campana Brothers, and Tom Dixon. Almost all of the pieces are from Design Miami, the agenda-setting design fair that he launched in 2005. Read the story.

The Samdani home in Bangladesh

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The Samdani Art Foundation

The Samdani Art Foundation

The Samdani Art Foundation

The Samdani Art Foundation

The Samdani residence is named ‘Golpo’, which, roughly translated from Bengali, means ‘fairy tale’. An important part of this fairy tale is art, and the Samdani home was designed so that the young couple could share their art with the many people who visit them. This is the third rehang of Golpo and it reflects the Samdanis’ journey as travellers and collectors. Read the story.